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The 6 Footy Fans

If you’re in this group you would rather watch Manchester United play against Oldham athletic in the second round of the FA cup than a Showdown. You don’t have any idea about AFL, and you think Lin Jong is a Chinese card game.

2) Fair-weather supporter

If your team is losing, nobody knows who you support, but as soon as they’re chalked up a win, you let everybody know that you’ve supported “your boys” since you were smaller than the goal-line review’s success rate. Melbourne fans are good at this; you won’t hear a peep out of them for 17 out of 23 rounds, but if they manage a rare win, suddenly your Facebook timeline is full of them!

3) Gambler

You love a footy multi, complete with head-to-head, overs/unders, line betting, and first goal scorer. Brownlow night is the best day in the footy calendar, and not just for Rory Sloane’s date! You do look forward to the end of the footy season though, because it means the spring racing carnival is just around the corner.

4) MCC member

Every Saturday afternoon at 2.10 you’re in the second level of the members stand at the MCG in your suit, complete with MCC tie and lapel pin, and your Demons scarf. Except for the July winter holidays, when you’re at Mount Hotham. But still, you like the look of “that number 23,” and “wow number 7 goes in hard!” By the way, how long until half time? Time to go to the bullring for a quiet one.

5) One eyed tragic

Every week you’re in the cheer squad, waving a flag or a flogger. But your duties do not end there. You take Fridays off work to spend the whole day making the banner for the weekend, and you spend the minutes before the game on the ground, holding it up, only to have the players tear through it in a matter of seconds. You’ve probably even been to Tasmania to watch your team play. Tasmania! You go to all the open trainings, and you have the autograph of every player twice, including rookies. You think every umpire is hopeless, but your players can’t do anything wrong.

6) Self proclaimed expert

You use the word ‘jet’ to describe players more than Bruce confesses his love for Cyril. Every year is the year you’ll win the car in Supercoach, and you join all available footy tipping competitions, only to finish mid-table because you thought North Melbourne were a contender. It’s not unusual for you to sit down in front of Fox Footy at 1.45 on a Saturday afternoon, and not move until 10.30 that night, unless of course you’ve gone along to see how your team’s reserves play in the VFL. You’ve got AFL360, On the Couch, The Bounce, Open Mike, League Teams, and The Footy Show all series linked on Foxtel IQ (but not Footy Classified because you can’t stand Caroline Wilson), and there’s nothing quite like watching a replay of a match from 2001 on ‘Chooseday Night Football.’ You know the name of every player in the AFL, and which foot he kicks on, which some people find super weird, but you wouldn’t change it for the world.

NB: For the description of the self proclaimed expert, I just described my life.